August 02, 2017

Winter sun

Winter can be filled with gloomy rainy days that seem to go on forever with not a sign of the sun. And while I still garden on gloomy days, it feels so much better when the sun is shining and you can peel of the thick layers of clothing. Yesterday and today were days just like that. I hit the garden with a plan to get lots of work done. I must admit that I am a very erratic gardener.......I tend to get easily distracted and end up with several half finished jobs instead of a few completed tasks.....a bit like my sewing really! Lately I have been trying to concentrate on getting the roses pruned....about 100 of them in total. The lucky ones are pruned every year. Some every second or even third year.....like my poor climbing rose on my arch. When you can see the rose hips waving at you through the upstairs window you know that it is in desperate need of a prune! Check it out now........I'm hoping for lots of beautiful bloom this year. The roses are Golden Gate and Westerland.

I also have a 'lovely' row of 15 pink carpet roses that Mum grew from cuttings for me. I planted them about 10 years ago, on the western side of the pittosporums. I don't think that they have been pruned for about 8 years and it really showed........they were about 7 foot high!

They continued to flower really well every year, with masses of pink flowers, but it time for a good hard prune.

Now I just have to get rid of all of the prunings! The tree trunk that you can see in the photo is from a self sown Blackwood Wattle tree.......it's pruning will be done down at ground level with a chainsaw, followed by a paintbrush laden with Round-up!

All in all a good couple of days in the garden......unfortunately I still have lots of half started bits!